Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, it has happened. I turned another year older last Thursday. I reached the ripe old age of 29, at which I will remain for the rest of my adult life. That’s the way it works, right? I had a wonderful week celebrating…from cards and warm wishes from family and friends to the happy homecoming of my husband. Plus, who can forget the cake? Calories don’t count on your birthday, you know.

I think my birthday falls at a great time of the year. May 20th falls just close enough to six months into the year, that as I take time to reflect on my life and my goals, I can take stock on those pesky New Year’s Resolutions I made on January 1st. It’s not always the most pleasurable part of my birthday traditions, but it is a necessary one. After all, without a system of checks and balances, how do we make the system work properly, right?

So, I went back to my blog post in January and reread that exciting, “let’s usher in the new year with passion” post. One thing that I realized right off the bat? I was WAY too perky when I wrote that. It must have been one of my non-morning sickness days. The second thing that occurred to me was that I was either too ambitious in my goals, or life just got in the way more than I intended. Either way, I didn’t accomplish near as much as I had hoped by now.

Here is a copy of my goals:

1. Write 500 words/day except for Sunday/holidays on either manuscript or blogs so that I can get in the habit of writing even without inspiration. I'll keep track of this on a spreadsheet.

Well, this one definitely flew out the window until about two months ago. I don’t think I hardly wrote a thing until April. However, now that morning sickness is over and the girls have been able to get outside and run off some energy, I have more time and, more importantly, energy to write. While I don’t think I’ve quite made it up to 500 words EVERY day. I have been getting better. So I intend to keep this goal the way it is and continue to strive to meet it.

2. Finish DS by the end of February so that I can enter it in the Genesis Contest and submit to MLP (and others).

Well, if I didn’t start writing anything until April, this definitely didn’t happen. If you follow this blog, then you know that although I wanted to work on DS, I was having issues with completing it. I recently did a complete read through, and then had a brainstorming session with a critique friend of mine. She inspired me to get my rear in gear and I actually did my first writing session on the ending of DS the other day. Yay!

Now, my new goal is to finish the rough draft of DS by the time Connor comes and then the final draft by August 31st. Wish me luck!

3. Write the first draft of the sequel to DS by the time the baby comes so I am not stressed about getting it on paper and can relax and edit.

Yeah, read number two.

4. Have the sequel finished by the end of the year.

While I think this goal may be a little harder to achieve, I don’t think that it will be impossible if I stick to (and exceed) my daily writing goals. I think it wouldn’t be too out of the realm of reason to think I could at least finish the rough draft. Do you?

5. Write/submit queries for at least one article/month for the year. This is a good way to break in, and possibly a way to make a little extra money.

I haven’t even looked at this one. I still think it is a viable option for me, and I really would like to get the experience and still contribute some to the household income. My goal is to revisit this in July/August and start from there.

6. Go to the ACFW conference.

Sadly, this is not an option for me this year. I thought my husband had this week off, but he doesn’t and he can’t get it off. I will really miss the conference opportunities this year, but look forward to next year when hopefully there will be more options for me.

7. Keep up with my blogs by creating new posts at least three times a week.

This is another area that was rough for the first few months of 2010. However, like the rest of my writing, it has picked up since April. While I don’t always make the three posts a week, I am posting more and more. Part of my problem sometimes is finding something I think would be interesting for you all to read about. Over the last month I’ve come up with some ideas and theme days that I hope will keep the readers (YOU!) coming back for more.

8. Read one writing and one non-writing book/month. (This month the writing book is Fire in Fiction by Donald Maas and the non-writing book is This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti.)

Yeah, if you think I didn’t have time and energy to write, I didn’t have much more for reading either. I still don’t think this is an outrageous goal; I just need to focus more on making time for reading. Right now I’m reading Brandilyn Collins’ Getting Into Character (yes, still…I’m telling you—no time and energy) and John B. Olson’s Shade.

Now, I’ve reflected on my goals, figured out where and why I came up short, and reassessed. I made new goals and new commitments to follow through. It’s your turn! What goals did you make that need some tweeking? Share!